Folk Rock and Fine Bordeaux

There's often music and a meal at Indigo Girl Emily Saliers's Atlanta home

By

Nancy Keates

Updated July 16, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

Atlanta

After a gig late one night a few years ago, folk-rock band Girlyman dropped by a white country-style wood house in the lush suburb of Decatur. Emily Saliers, the red-headed half of the group Indigo Girls, led the band's three members to her kitchen, where she whipped up some eggs and ham. The band slept over, and the next night they all ate her homemade beef tenderloin, drank her Burgundies and Bordeaux and sang songs late into the night.

A Musician's Retreat

Kendrick Brinson/LUCEO Images

"It's what I used to do with people when I was younger but stopped once I became a professional musician. Her house is a place where I can still do that," says Girlyman member Nate Borofsky, who estimates he's been to Ms. Saliers's ten times since his band moved to Atlanta in 2007.

Ms. Saliers, the 46-year-old singer and guitarist who started the folk rock Indigo Girls with Amy Ray in 1985, has always been drawn more to wine, women and song than to sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, and her home reflects that. There's a 2,000-bottle wine cellar, a library lined with literature, much of it by female authors, and a music studio geared toward acoustic songwriting where the amps are rarely cranked up.

But it is the kitchen that's the center of activity. A food enthusiast, Ms. Saliers co-owns Watershed, a Southern-style farm-to-table restaurant here. A five-minute drive away from her home, it's known for its extensive wine list and its Tuesday night fried chicken, which comes with mashed potatoes, garlic green beans and biscuits for $19. "When I'm home I cook. I love cooking for people," Ms. Saliers said on a recent Monday morning, in town for a few weeks before returning to a national tour.

Large and sunny with high ceilings, the open kitchen in her home is outfitted with a six-burner Thermador stove, a powerful hood, a Sub-Zero refrigerator and a huge granite-topped island. "There's something about being in her kitchen that makes you want to be creative," says Seattle-based singer songwriter Brandi Carlile who likes to hang out there when she's in town, listening to demos and writing lyrics with Ms. Saliers.

The rest of the first floor includes an uncluttered living room with white linen sofas, a small dining room and the library, which holds Ms. Saliers's 1989 Grammy and a cheap nylon string guitar her parents bought for her when she was nine-years old (instead of the purple velvet-backed one she really wanted). In the powder room is a copy of Joni Mitchell's "Ladies of the Canyon" album cover. "She was my original inspiration," said Ms. Saliers.

Upstairs, in a room with slanted ceilings, is Ms. Saliers's music studio, which she calls her "little safe space" with framed gold and platinum Indigo Girls records. A closet in her office across the hall holds several thousand CDs by other artists. Lately she's been listening to hip-hop including Public Enemy, Tupac Shakur and Eminem. "I don't like misogyny, so I struggle with it," admitted Ms. Saliers, who has an infinity tattoo on one wrist and a "T" on the other ("that stands for trouble," jokes her girlfriend Tristin Chipman).

Raised in Atlanta, Ms. Saliers said she began playing guitar in third grade and has been obsessed with food since she first tasted fried clams at Howard Johnson's on a family road trip. She met Ms. Ray, the Indigo Girls's other half, in elementary school; the two have since released 11 albums together over the past 25 years. (Ms. Ray now lives in the woods in north Georgia.)

Previously living in the Druid Hills section of Atlanta, Ms. Saliers said she decided to move to Decatur about a decade ago. "I love Decatur. It is diverse, politically progressive, family oriented and I can walk everywhere," she said. She said it was the kitchen that convinced her to buy her current 2,888-square-foot home for $640,000 in 2001. A five-bedroom, four-bathroom home nearby built this year is currently on the market for $679,000.

Ms. Saliers then spent two years renovating the rest of the house, turning it from a five-bedroom family home into a two-bedroom hangout with refinished oak floors and few walls. In the basement she put in a brick floored wine cellar that chills her bottles of mostly French and California reds at a constant 55 degrees.

Ms. Saliers said she sometimes misses the glory days when she played to big audiences, but she is pleased that demand for Indigo Girls's music remains strong; they still tour constantly, landing in smaller clubs and some 7,000-seat venues. She is working on a solo album; she and Ms. Ray will release a holiday record in October.

During her tour breaks Ms. Saliers plans to keep collecting wine, running Watershed and cooking for her many family members nearby and friends. "It feels like I could keep going like this for a long time," she said.

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